Writing for MarketWatch, Kristen Gerencher writes that the new rules requiring insurance coverage for contraceptives may have significant ramifications in terms of the social costs of unwanted pregnancies and even on children’s health.
Here are a few excerpts:
Half of all U.S. pregnancies are unintended, a rate that’s unchanged since 1981, and about one in three women will have had an abortion by the time she’s 45.
Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, for example, spend $12 billion a year providing health care to low-income women with unintended pregnancies and for medical care during the infant’s first year of life, according to a study that Thomas coauthored.
At the same time, contraception’s return on investment is impressive. Every $1 spent providing subsidized birth control to people who want it ends up saving $4 to $6 down the road, Thomas said. [Adam Thomas, research director for the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution in Washington]
“Evidence-based pregnancy prevention programs pay for themselves even if you make pretty conservative assumptions about how effective they are and what kind of savings they’re producing.”
What’s more, health and social disparities between children who were planned and those who weren’t often continue through childhood, he said. “Kids whose births were intended are more likely to fare well in school, have fewer behavioral problems and are healthier on average.”
…where cost barriers exist, the new rules will go a long way to help rebalance access, said Dr. Vanessa Cullins, vice president for medical affairs at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, based in New York.
“What this recommendation does is level the playing field between affluent women and less affluent women, the ones who have rich health benefits plans and those who have less rich benefits plans,” she said.
Read the whole story on MarketWatch.
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